Castro Law Group
Fifty-five motorcyclists had died on Maryland roads this year as of Sept. 7, more than the 49 killed in all of 2025, even as overall traffic deaths in the state fell 13% over the same stretch, according to Maryland transportation figures reported by The Southern Maryland Chronicle.
Riders who survive a crash still face the same rules for recovering damages that applied before Oct. 1, the date a 2026 bill would have loosened Maryland's contributory negligence doctrine for motorcyclists, pedestrians, cyclists and other vulnerable road users. According to the General Assembly's legislative record, the House Judiciary Committee heard the bill in February and sent it to interim study in March, and the bill never reached a floor vote.
Maryland is one of five U.S. jurisdictions, along with three other states and the District of Columbia, that still apply contributory negligence, according to a Department of Legislative Services analysis of House Bill 466. Under the doctrine, an injured plaintiff's fault, however slight, is a defense to a negligence claim and bars all recovery. Most states use some form of comparative fault, which generally reduces an award by the injured person's share of blame rather than eliminating it.
What the bill would have changed
House Bill 466 applied only to lawsuits arising from motor vehicle crashes and only to plaintiffs defined in state law as vulnerable individuals, a category that includes pedestrians and people lawfully riding bicycles, motorcycles and motor scooters. For those plaintiffs, recovery could not have been barred unless their negligence was a proximate cause of the injury and greater than the combined negligence of all defendants. Damages would otherwise have been reduced in proportion to the plaintiff's share of fault. As drafted, the change would have applied only prospectively.
The insurance industry opposed the bill. In written testimony to the committee, the American Property Casualty Insurance Association argued that the measure would put two standards into a single crash, with a cyclist judged under comparative fault and the driver under contributory negligence, an arrangement the group called "unworkable." The association also cited a decades-old academic study finding that insurers' loss costs in Delaware grew faster than Maryland's after Delaware moved to comparative fault.
The bill had 12 sponsors in the House of Delegates. It received a hearing on Feb. 11, and the committee referred it to interim study on March 19, where it remains. Maryland's highest court declined to abolish the doctrine in 2013, in Coleman v. Soccer Association of Columbia, and left any change to the General Assembly.
The legislature did act on road safety for the same group of travelers this year. The Vulnerable Road User Protection Act of 2026, which took effect Oct. 1, authorizes the State Highway Administration to set up speed monitoring systems in safety corridors that are high-risk for vulnerable road users. That law addresses enforcement. It does not alter how fault is assigned when an injured person sues.
A narrow exception and two clocks
One exception, the last clear chance doctrine, can keep a defendant liable despite the plaintiff's negligence when the defendant had a fresh opportunity to avoid the harm and failed to take it, according to the same legislative analysis.
The fault rule also operates alongside Maryland's deadlines. Most injury lawsuits must be filed within three years of the date the claim accrues, and claims against a county, a town or one of their employees generally require written notice within one year. Those requirements, and how the all-or-nothing rule applies to crash, fall and dog bite claims in Charles County, were the subject of an October advisory from Castro Law Group, a Waldorf personal injury firm.
Robert R. Castro, the firm's founding attorney, has practiced law in Maryland since 1993, and the firm handles motorcycle, car and truck crash claims for people hurt on Charles County roads. He said the all-or-nothing rule leaves an injured person almost no margin for error, even in a crash someone else largely caused.
"In Maryland, one detail can decide whether an injured person recovers anything at all," Castro said. "A driver who glanced at a phone or misjudged a yellow light can lose the entire claim, even when someone else caused most of the harm. That's why we gather and protect the facts early, before an insurer settles on its own version of what happened."
Who the rule reaches
The doctrine is not limited to motorcyclists or to crashes. It applies to negligence claims generally, including falls on business property and dog bites, and to drivers and passengers as well as riders and pedestrians. House Bill 466 would have carved out only crash claims brought by vulnerable individuals, leaving the rule in place for everyone else.
The months ahead have historically been the busiest of the year on Charles County roads. There, October, November and December together accounted for 28.2% of all crashes on average from 2019 through 2023, the three highest monthly shares of the year, according to the Maryland Highway Safety Office's county crash summary. The county recorded 2,905 crashes in 2023, and 1,102 people were injured in them.
Interim study keeps the bill's subject before the Judiciary Committee between sessions. Any change to the doctrine would require new legislation in the General Assembly, which convenes its next regular session in January.
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